A woman murdered by her partner at their home had written him a letter describing her fear of his violent outbursts and revealing she felt “heartbroken”.
Clifton George savagely killed Annabel Rook at their Stoke Newington home on June 16 last year, strangling and stabbing her to death before blowing up the property. He will be sentenced for his horrific crimes later today (Tuesday, June 9).
During the trial, a court heard how Annabel had composed a letter to George on her laptop, laying bare her fears about provoking his anger.
View 4 Images(Image: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire)
The document also appeared to shed light on George’s explosive temper. The 46-year-old wrote that the couple no longer brought joy to one another, stating: “However hard I tried, I seemed to make you angry.”
Tragically, her letter was seemingly never sent, as she was brutally beaten, strangled and stabbed to death by George in the living room of their home. After taking her life, he then triggered a gas explosion, setting the property ablaze, according to the Daily Record.
George denied murder at a Snaresbrook Crown Court trial, but was convicted by a jury last week and will receive a life sentence from Mr Justice Constable KC on Tuesday.
His attempt to claim loss of self control as a partial defence fell apart during the trial, after jurors heard evidence of his short fuse, angry outbursts at Ms Rook, and at least one incident when he had been violent towards her.
View 4 ImagesThe aftermath of a gas explosion on June 17 shown to jurors(Image: Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire)
Ms Rook, a charity worker who co-founded social enterprise MamaSuze to help refugees through arts workshops, is the daughter of retired Old Bailey judge Peter Rook.
The court heard prosecutor Jones KC describe the unsent letter as “a heartbreaking description of a woman reluctantly letting go of her dream of a happy life with her partner.
“It is not angry, or hurtful – it is expressed as an attempt to be reasonable and accepting that the relationship just isn’t going to work.”
In the letter, she proposed a separation and wrote: “A year ago we came to the decision we weren’t making each other happy.
“Somehow love wasn’t enough. We couldn’t reach each other.”
She added: “My heart is broken.”
In 2024, George had furiously lashed out at Ms Rook at Glastonbury Festival following a booze-fuelled argument with one of their mates.
Ms Rook revealed in her letter that “something inside of me snapped”, and she penned to her partner: “I couldn’t deal with our misunderstandings anymore.
“I couldn’t deal with feeling like I couldn’t be myself in case I said something that upset you. However hard I tried, I seemed to make you angry.”
Ms Rook explained that she felt “lonely” within the relationship and unable to stay true to herself.
In a separate message written to herself, Ms Rook described hiding away in the spare bedroom while trying to avoid one of George’s furious outbursts over household chores.
“You are raging downstairs, emptying the bins with fury, the bins I’ve not emptied, the mess I’ve created”, she wrote. “I don’t want to be around you – you are so unkind to me.
“It is the third time in three days you gaslight me and shouted me down. Mostly I don’t want you hurting me anymore.” At the time of her murder, Ms Rook had informed George their relationship was over and made clear he needed to leave their home in Dumont Road, Stoke Newington.
George, an electrician, maintained during his trial that he was not hot-tempered, and attempted to place responsibility for the stabbing on Ms Rook, alleging he had “lost it” when she pushed him in the face.
Yet testimony from Ms Rook’s friends and relatives portrayed George as having a “short fuse” and being prone to anger, while Ms Rook herself described feeling like she was “walking on eggshells” around him.
View 4 Images(Image: Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire)
In February 2023, she had tearfully told her father, Judge Peter Rook, that she was considering ending things with George, calling him a bully and voicing concerns that “he would never change”.
Merely days before her tragic death, Ms Rook sent her sister a message following a row with George, concluding that the relationship was “not tenable”.
“I fear there will be some more wrath to come”, she said, acknowledging it is “not a nice place to be”.
“I will get through this and will be stronger for it out the other side”, she stated as she finished the message, on June 1 last year.
Yet highlighting Ms Rook’s kind-hearted nature, the court also heard evidence that she intended to provide £50,000 to George to help him secure a new home and harboured hopes that he would still join her on Rook family holidays going forward.
In a ruling to strip George of his right to cite loss of self-control as a defence to murder, Mr Justice Constable KC said the evidence had demonstrated that he is prone to “becoming extremely and disproportionately angry and aggressive, often at minor or petty things”.
“The evidence was overwhelming,” he declared.
“It came from direct testimony from witnesses who had both experienced that anger directly, and to whom it was regularly reported by Annabel Rook.”
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He noted that the only plausible conclusion drawn from the evidence was that George was capable of “unreasonable flashing rage anger”, and that the killing of his partner had taken place during an “extreme loss of temper”.
George, who had been drinking red wine, punched and throttled his partner before seizing a kitchen knife and stabbing her 31 times.
Following the stabbing, George went on to destroy the house in a gas explosion. George was remanded in custody after being found guilty and will face a life sentence today.